Miri et al v. Dillon et al

Filing 80

ORDER granting Defendant Clinton's 56 Motion for Summary Judgment on the Issue of Standing for Injunctive Relief. Signed by District Judge Nancy G. Edmunds. (CBet)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION

Adhid Miri, an individual, The Exchange
Inc., A Michigan corporation d/b/a 'Copper
Canyon" on behalf of themselves and all
other similarly situated persons and entities,

Case No. 11-15248
Honorable Nancy G. Edmunds

Plaintiffs,
v.
Kevin Clinton, in his capacity as Treasurer
for the State of Michigan, Rick Rodriguez,
an individual, Barbara Weathersbee, an
individual, Michigan State Trooper John
Doe #1, and Michigan State Trooper John
Doe #2,
Defendants.
/
ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT CLINTON'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY
JUDGMENT ON THE ISSUE OF STANDING FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF [56]
Currently before the Court is a motion for summary judgment filed by Defendant Kevin
Clinton1, as the Treasurer of the State of Michigan. Treasurer Clinton is seeking summary
judgment on the issue of Plaintiff’s request for an injunction, arguing that Plaintiffs lack
standing and that, even if they have standing, the request for injunctive relief has become
moot.
For the reasons set forth below, the Court GRANTS Treasurer Clinton’s motion.

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The Defendants in this case are Kevin Clinton, in his capacity as Treasurer for the
State of Michigan, Rick Rodriguez, an individual, Barbara Weathersbee, in individual,
Michigan State Trooper John Doe #1, and Michigan State Trooper John Doe #2. To the
extent that Plaintiff's claims for injunctive relief are applicable to Mr. Rodriguez and Ms.
Weathersbee, Defendant Treasurer Clinton makes the instant motion on their behalf as
well.

I.

FACTS
This is a class action seeking, among other things, an injunction against the Michigan

Treasury’s practice of executing tax seizures without a judicially issued warrant. The facts
are clear that for many years, the Michigan Treasury conducted seizures to satisfy tax
debts without a judicially issued warrant, including entering and searching private areas on
business premises in order to effectuate a seizure. Instead of obtaining a warrant for these
search and seizure operations, the Michigan Treasury had a process of multi-level, internal
review in place, ostensibly to ensure that the correct assets were seized to satisfy a given
tax debt. Since the initiation of this lawsuit, the Michigan Treasury has modified its tax
seizure process to include the acquisition of a court order authorizing each seizure.
The Michigan Treasury maintains, however, that in order to seize assets from a
business, as opposed to a private residence, no such court order is necessarily required
to satisfy the Fourth Amendment. Howard Dep. 120:19-25, Sept. 17, 2012. Furthermore,
the new process that includes a court order appears to be a draft, which is easily changed,
as the one before it was. Id. at 115:17-116:19.
The class in this case contains 162 memebers, and in an order issued by this Court
on May 14, 2013, was defined as:
All persons, businesses, or entities who or which have been subjected to
nonconsensual, non-judicially approved search and/or seizure of their
property carried out by agents or other persons acting on behalf of or at the
direction of the Michigan Department of Treasury within the applicable statute
of limitations period where such persons failed to secure judicially authorized
warrants permitting such search and/or seizure.
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Treasurer Clinton is seeking summary judgment solely on the issue of whether
Plaintiffs have standing to pursue a claim for injunctive relief.
II.

ANALYSIS
A. The Standard on Motion for Summary Judgment
The Sixth Circuit employs the familiar standard for summary judgment, namely, that

summary judgment is proper when the movant "shows that there is no genuine dispute as
to any material fact, and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." U.S.
SEC v. Sierra Brokerage Services, Inc., 712 F.3d 321, 326-27 (6th Cir. 2013) (citing
Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 251–52 (1986)) (quotations omitted). When
reviewing the record, "the court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the
non-moving party and draw all reasonable inferences in its favor." Id. Furthermore, the
"substantive law will identify which facts are material, and summary judgment will not lie if
the dispute about a material fact is 'genuine,' that is, if the evidence is such that a
reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party." Id.
When considering the material facts on the record, a court must bear in mind that
“[t]he mere existence of a scintilla of evidence in support of the plaintiff's position will be
insufficient; there must be evidence on which the jury could reasonably find for the plaintiff.”
Anderson, 477 U.S. at 252.
Moreover, “[i]n order to survive a motion for summary judgment, the non-moving
party must be able to show ‘sufficient probative evidence [that] would permit a finding in
[their] favor on more than mere speculation, conjecture, or fantasy.” Arendale v. City of

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Memphis, 519 F.3d 587, 605 (6th Cir. 2008) (citing and quoting Lewis v. Philip Morris Inc.,
355 F.3d 515, 533 (6th Cir. 2004)).
B. Article III Standing
1. The Four-Point Analysis for Article III Standing for Injunctive Relief
In order to satisfy the "case or controversy" standing requirement of Article III of the
United States Constitution, a party seeking injunctive relief must establish that he or she
is: 1- under threat of suffering “injury in fact” that is concrete and particularized; 2- the
threat must be actual and imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; 3- it must be fairly
traceable to the challenged action of the defendant, and; 4- it must be likely that a favorable
judicial decision will prevent or redress the injury. Summers v. Earth Island Inst., 555 U.S.
488, 493 (2009).
In this case, a strong case can be made for the first, third, and fourth standing
requirements. That is, the “injury” here is concrete, it is the unconstitutional seizure of
assets. The injury is also traceable to the challenged action, by way of the Treasury’s
former seizure practices, and it is likely preventable by judicial action, as an injunction
would prevent further unconstitutional seizures.
Where Plaintiffs have a problem with their standing is the second prong. Treasurer
Clinton argues that "[a]bsent a sufficient likelihood that a plaintiff will again be wronged in
a similar way," that plaintiff is not entitled to injunctive relief. City of Los Angeles v. Lyons,
461 U.S. 95, 111 (1983). In response, Plaintiffs argue that Lyons is distinguishable,
particularly because this case is a class action, and as such, the Court must consider the
likelihood of a recurrence of the unlawful actions as to the class as a whole, not just the
representative plaintiff. While that is true, it does not relieve the Court of its duty to come
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to a decision on the issue of whether or not there is "a sufficient likelihood that a plaintiff will
again be wronged in a similar way," it only widens the scope of the analysis to include the
entire class.
This prong of the standing analysis is tied closely with the doctrine of mootness and
the case law often blurs the line between a direct standing analysis and the mootness
analysis. As such, the parties have not pointed to, nor has the Court found a case from the
Sixth Circuit that directly addresses the issue of class standing where the threat of injury
may not be imminent for the entire class outside the framework of the mootness analysis.
The Seventh Circuit, however, has stated outright that "as long as one member of a
certified class has a plausible claim to have suffered damages, the requirement of standing
is satisfied." Kohen v. Pac. Inv. Mgmt. Co. LLC, 571 F.3d 672, 676 (7th Cir. 2009). While
the Kohen language is not controlling, the Court finds it persuasive, as it meshes logically
with the mootness doctrine, and to find otherwise would undercut the foundational
principles of class action litigation by incentivizing defendants to settle with individual class
members in order to destroy the class's standing.
Here, however, the nature of the wrong, together with the definition of the class itself
gives the Court pause on this issue. Plaintiff argues that the possibility of a warrantless
search of any of the 162 class members is sufficient to create the actual and imminent
threat required by Article III. That position, however, requires the Court to assume that at
least one of the class will again fall into such tax delinquency as to have their account be
approved for a tax seizure for a second time and that the Michigan treasury would resort
to its old, extra-judicial tactics in attempting to satisfy the debt. In other words, because
injunctive relief is a forward looking remedy, and the class of plaintiffs is defined as people
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and businesses that have already been subjected to allegedly unconstitutional actions, the
forward looking remedy does not necessarily address the injuries of the class, which as a
group seems unlikely to suffer the same wrong a second time. A hypothetical example may
prove enlightening on this point: if the class was defined to include people or businesses
with current, outstanding tax debts, those parties would be under the threat of a potentially
unconstitutional seizure, going forward, and would likely satisfy the imminent threat part of
this analysis. Contrast that hypothetical class with the actual class, consisting of people
who have already had their assets seized to satisfy their tax debts in whole or in part, and
the remote likelihood of a second seizure becomes apparent.
Although the Lyons case dealt with a single plaintiff, the analogy is apt. The threat
of the plaintiff being randomly stopped and choked by the police for a second time in Lyons
required too many leaps of faith to create standing for injunctive relief. As noted above,
here too the threat of one of the class members again having their debt selected for a
seizure and that seizure violating the Fourth Amendment requires too many assumptions.
The Court, therefore, finds that the threat to the class of another unconstitutional
seizure is so remote that it inhabits the realm of the "conjectural or hypothetical" and as a
result, the Plaintiffs do not have standing to seek injunctive relief in this case, and
Treasurer Clinton's motion for summary judgment on the issue of standing for injunctice
relief is GRANTED.

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2. A mootness analysis is not necessary in light of the Court's finding of
no standing for injunctive relief
In light of the Court's finding that Treasurer Clinton is entitled to summary judgment
on the four-point Article III standing analysis, the issue of mootness has itself become
moot, and need not be addressed.
III.

CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, the Court GRANTS Defendant Treasurer Kevin

Clinton's motion for summary judgment and DISMISSES Plaintiffs' claim for injunctive relief.
SO ORDERED.

s/Nancy G. Edmunds
Nancy G. Edmunds
United States District Judge
Dated: April 16, 2014
I hereby certify that a copy of the foregoing document was served upon counsel of record
on April 16, 2014, by electronic and/or ordinary mail.
s/Carol J. Bethel
Case Manager

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